A week ago he was an opposition figure at risk of fading from the political scene. Today, images of Morgan Tsvangirai's battered and swollen face are world news, shaming even the African Union to admit that it is embarrassed by the actions of Robert Mugabe's thugs. The brutal beating in custody of Zimbabwe's most famous trade unionist has focused attention on the sufferings endured by his countrymen after seven years of ineffective electioneering by his Movement for Democratic Change.

Mr Tsvangirai is no Nelson Mandela. He has admitted lapses of judgment, such as the time he was secretly taped discussing plans to assassinate Mr Mugabe with a former Israeli spy. It was a set up and formed the basis of one of two charges of treason, of which he was acquitted. Under him, the MDC split on ethnic lines, between the Shona and Ndebele tribes, over whether to contest elections to the senate. He resisted calls to take to the streets in rigged parliamentary elections of 2000 and presidential elections two years later. Critics claim these were missed opportunities, but Mr Tsvangirai has kept faith with his people.

He is plucky and still enormously popular and he has remained a democrat. The eldest of nine children, who had to leave school early to support the family, he is largely self-taught. Despite the miscalculations, or perhaps because of them, there is something of the folk hero about the man who doggedly refuses to bow to the blows of Mr Mugabe's truncheons.